


A single string (tying me to you)

by SomewhereBeyondReality



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: (mostly), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Platonic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:49:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26810929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomewhereBeyondReality/pseuds/SomewhereBeyondReality
Summary: Five soul marks is a lot. Especially when your soul family is scattered around the world and there's a war going on.But the Gaang will find each other - just try and stop them.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 129





	A single string (tying me to you)

**Author's Note:**

> Jumping on the soulmate!fic train because it's honestly the perfect fit for Team Avatar. 
> 
> Slight variation on the theme - your soul words aren't the first words your soulmate says to you, but are something especially significant or meaningful, that can be said at any point after you meet.
> 
> Featuring perspectives and relationships between all the Gaang. Canon-compliant, except for slight Katara/Zuko. 
> 
> Borrowed the Zuko-got-his-marks-burned-off from TunaFishChris and WitchOfEndor's amazing fics - because it's so incredibly heartbreaking but also 100% in-character for Ozai and of course, that's what Zuko would go through.

**Aang**

Aang has five soul marks.

A simple **_Promise_** scribbled on his left wrist.

 ** _We’re your family now_** flowing across the back of that hand.

A heartfelt **_I have a new drive; I have to help you_** running up his right wrist to his knuckles.

 ** _Let him go_** stamped on his foot.

 ** _I know she would_** sweeping in a half circle on the side of his neck.

He knows it’s unusual for all his words to be so visible. The monks tell him that soul marks can be written anywhere on your body, but they’re normally in more hidden spots.

Monk Gyatso just smiles when Aang asks him about it.

“Your marks show your heart is open Aang,” he tells him. “You are free with your love and your friendship. Your soul family will like that.”

Aang isn’t worried. Unsaid soulmate words are a faint, pale grey anyway – the letters messy and hard to decipher without looking closely. They become clear when your soulmate says the words and solidify into one of the four nation’s colours - burning red, shimmering blue, deep green or bright yellow. (Sometimes the words can even be two colours – Gyatso has a mark with red and blue all swirled together from a soulmate who is half Fire Nation and half Water Tribe).

(There’s one other colour your marks can turn. But Aang doesn’t like to think about that happening to any of his soulmates).

“Is it the first thing they’ll say to me?” He asks instead. “When we meet?”

“Not when your bodies meet.” Gyatso says. “It will be when your souls meet – when you extend your true selves and your spirits embrace each other.”

“That sounds exciting!”

“It can be exciting yes. Or it can be a quiet moment of stillness. But it will be important.”

When Aang turns twelve, he begins to wonder why none of his words have changed yet – he knows he has lots of time left but he’s met _so_ many people that one of them must be his soulmate!

Is it Bumi? Or Kuzon? Or Gyatso? One of them will say his words soon, he’s sure of it.

X-X

**Zuko**

His father doesn’t have any words. Neither does Azula.

Zuko realises it’s yet another way he’s let his father down – bad enough he has soulmates at all but _five_ of them? _Five_ strangers he’s bound to when he’s meant to be loyal to the Fire Nation throne? 

Zuko wishes he could be loyal to his family _and_ his soulmates, but he understands why his father had to burn his words off. (Even if they still hurt sometimes).

Sometimes in the dark of the night, when his chest goes tight and scared and tears pinch at his eyes, he can’t help reaching for his scars – the long one on his left forearm, the splodge up on his bicep, an arc across his back, a pointy one on the back of his hand, and the big one in the centre of his chest. Zuko presses against the mottled skin, wishing he could scrape away the burns to read the words underneath.

He’d wonder what his soulmates are like – if they’re kind and love turtleducks like mother or mean and would laugh and trip him up when he’s practicing his katas like Azula. He wonders if they’d mind that he’s slow and a bit stupid sometimes and not very good at fire-bending.

He wonders if they think about him.

During the day, he hides his scars, so people don’t look at him funny – how weak does a Fire Nation Prince have to be to get _burned?_

x

When his Uncle peels away the bandages after the Agni Kai, Zuko realises he was stupid to worry about his soul burns. Maybe if he’d spent less time dreaming about his soulmates and more time listening to his father, he’d still be home.

He’ll do better now.

X-X  
  


**Sokka**

Sokka is good at counting. He likes how numbers work and fit together to tell you useful things like how many fish Dad caught for dinner and the number of ice slabs they need to build a new meeting hall.

One of the first things he ever counts is his soul words, tapping all the jumbled sentences on his body. Most people have two or three soulmates, maybe four in big soul families – but Sokka has _five._

On one hand, Sokka thinks it’s good, he knows bigger numbers makes your stronger, like when all the men in the tribe work together to hunt moose-elk. But on the other hand (literally, he has words on both hands, he thinks giggling to himself) more numbers mean’s more people to protect, like having to build a wall big enough to keep the whole village safe. And Sokka’s not sure he can protect _all_ his soulmates at the same time – at least not until he’s bigger.

Mom and Dad tell him about soul words and what they mean, but not what they say. That’s for him to discover all by himself. They say it’s a sacred experience for everyone in the tribe, that moment you untangle the words and know what your soulmates will one day say out loud to you.

He reads his first words in the warm glow of the campfire, tracing a chubby finger down his forearm – **_You have to try every time._** Sokka repeats the phrase to himself every day – when he gets one (then two) fishhooks stuck in his thumb, during a snowball fight with Katara, while he’s practicing with his boomerang – so it’s like his soulmate is there with him.

Next are the two marks on his left and right palm: **_I’m going to look after us_** and **_I’m really going to miss you guys_** _._ He bites him lip then, worry squiggling in his stomach – why does he need to be looked after? And why is his soulmate leaving? He curls his palms in and holds his marks close, blood drumming under his skin, as if he can shelter them from the world and never let them go. 

He takes longer to figure out his fourth mark, partly because it’s in a funny semi-circle and partly because it’s harder to see, written on his chest over his heart, making him crane his neck to read it. **_I wanted to make sure you got through safely._** Sokka wonders where he’s going and why his soulmate is helping him. He doesn’t think he needs someone to keep him safe, but maybe this soulmate is someone like the older boys of the tribe, someone big and powerful who will teach him how to fight and be a proper man.

The last words he reads are across his ribs, clear and friendly: _**Say hello to the newest member of our family!** _Are they introducing him to his other soulmates? Or is he going to get another baby sibling?? Katara is enough to be ten sisters all by herself!

He starts counting the days until he finds out.

X-X

**Suki**

Suki covers her words most of the time, hiding them beneath her make-up and Kyoshi uniform. She likes it that way, as if she’s already protecting her soulmates.

In rare quiet moments, she studies her marks, making out the handwriting through the snarled letters and how different they all are.

 ** _Thank you_** on her hip is punchy and plain.

 ** _That means everything and it would be my greatest honour_** jabs across her shoulder blade, spikey and intense and she wonders if her soulmate will be the same.

 ** _You’re right, we can be_** wraps around her arm like a bracelet, graceful and resolute.

Suki loves **_Do you think Kyoshi would be proud?_** scrawled on her hand (yes, _yes_ will always be the answer, she swears to herself) but her favourite words of all sit just below her collarbone, going straight and then turning at a right angle, so it’s in jagged almost-triangle, quirky and unusual. **_I should have treated you like a warrior_** _._

She’s wanted to be a Kyoshi warrior since she first held a fan – now her soulmates have promised she will be.

And she makes her own promise to them.

Most of her village find their soulmates right on Kyoshi Island – maybe in the next town over or occasionally on one of the ships stopping by to trade. But no one Suki meets ever says her words. Her Uncle tells her it takes time, you can know someone for years before it happens – but something in Suki tugs at that, a whisper that maybe they’re not on Kyoshi at all, that there’s a whole world waiting out there, needing her and needing them.

She doesn’t seek out her soul family – she has other things, training to do, warriors to lead, a village to defend.

But sometimes, she stands on the shore, watching the sun glinting across the waves, feels the sand under her toes and wind brushing her hair. She thinks about the dangers out there, the war and the Fire Nation and the terrible, haunting stories. And she promises her soulmates that she’ll keep them safe.

X-X  
  


**Katara**

Katara loves her words. She loves running her fingers over them, imagining the colours they’ll turn and how her soulmates will say them.

She plays a game with herself, rehearsing conversations and imagining what she’ll say back. Her Mom says that soul words don’t always come at the same time – sometimes you and your soulmate will exchange them in conversation, but you can say them days or weeks or even years apart, especially if you have one soulmate who is ready and the other isn’t. Katara knows all that, but she still likes to imagine.

 ** _That’s something we have in common_** is her favourite. What is it they have in common? They both love stewed sea prunes? Hate darning Sokka’s smelly socks? Quietly, she dreams that maybe they’re both water benders, that her soulmate can help her channel the pulsing power at her fingertips.

 ** _We can be both_** in a semi-circle on her right wrist is fun as well. Both what? A good sister and daughter? A cook and a water-bender?

The back of her right hand is more serious **_I’ll protect us_** , stark and solid. Katara doesn’t imagine much around that one, there’s too many scary answers.

 ** _She actually cares about me, you know the real me_** running down her leg is confusing. Is her soulmate talking about someone else to her? Or is Katara overhearing something? Is her soulmate saying Katara doesn’t care about the real her?? Of course, she cares! She cares a lot already!

Her final words, nestled in the crease of her elbow, make Katara unusual, not because they’re strange – a simple **_Say hello to the newest member of our family_** – but because they mean she already knows one of her soulmates before they’ve even said anything. Because one night, she sees Sokka has the very same words on his ribs.

Mom tells them your blood family can be your soul family as well and that it means Katara and Sokka are extra-important to each other and need to take care of each other. (Though that doesn’t stop them fighting over who gets the last of the seal jerky).

Katara thinks it might be ok if Sokka’s her soulmate – sure he’s annoying and loud and eats too much, but he also gives her his extra fur blanket on cold nights and builds her a snow fort and hides Gran Gran’s pot that she broke.

She wonders which of her words Sokka will say. They still don’t see each other’s marks much (even if soul words weren’t meant to be private, they’re too layered up under parkas and gloves) but Katara _knows_ now.

Sokka teases her sometimes, pretending to be one of their soulmates saying their shared words his voice all high and silly, Katara smacks him at first but always ends up laughing anyway.

Until the Fire Nation comes and the laughing stops.

X-X  
  


**Toph**

All Toph’s words are on her feet. She likes that. That’s how she sees, and she likes to think it means her soul-family will see her clearly too.

She can’t read her words of course and her parents won’t tell her what they are ( _“it could be dangerous for you Toph, we don’t want you getting ideas_ ”) but Toph finds a servant new enough not to know her father’s orders and badgers them to look. They tap out where her words are, and Toph repeats them to herself until they’re rooted in her brain as smooth and steady as rock.

She figures out why her parents didn’t want to read them – **_You could come with us_** is big and glaring just above her toes, as threatening as if she had a ransom note stuck to her. The mysterious offer probably keeps her mother up at night, but it makes Toph’s heart thrum. Where are her soulmates going? Where have they come from?

 ** _I’m glad I’m here with you all_** by her ankle only makes her more curious. Do they have to find that soulmate too? Are they all in different places?

 ** _You're so strong and confident and self-assured_** is hidden on the sole of her other foot. She’s sure her parents hate that one too (if they’ve ever seen it at all) but the words steel something in Toph. They push her to sneak out of the compound for the first time, encourage her in first fight as the Blind Bandit. Because her soulmates know she can do it, and so does she.

The last two marks are less exciting – one just a short, single **_Toph_** all curved (well hey, at least her soulmates know her name) and a surprisingly mushy **_Okay we love each other_** _._

Toph doesn’t sit around daydreaming about her soulmates much. She’d rather go out and act and fight, and _make_ things happen. …but sometimes when she’s sitting at dinner, conversation passing around and through her, walls pressing it until she could scream, she presses her feet together, feeling the words against her skin. And she reminds herself that her soulmates are out there, that they know her, and they love her. 

**Author's Note:**

> You can probably work out who most of the words belong to - I made up or altered a couple of them (especially Suki's as she has less interactions with the Gaang) but a lot of them canon-compliant and from the show itself. It was a mission trying to pick them for each character and make them match up and work out the impact the words would have on existing characterisations. 
> 
> Also, sorry Katara but what you have in common is not nearly as nice as stewed prunes :( :(
> 
> Next chapter will cover how all the words play out. 
> 
> Please review!


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